Think about our distant ancestors . . . energy in the form of food was scarce and hard to obtain. Those who survived had a genetic predisposition to not use energy wastefully but rather to store it up for times when it was really needed. This gave them an evolutionary advantage. And that’s why I slept in and didn’t go to the gym this morning . . . Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
The Smartest Kids in the World
Via Philip Greenspun: Amanda Ripley identifies the following major problems with American schools: people who are poorly educated are hired as schoolteachers teachers have limited autonomy (partly as a result of their low level of knowledge and ability) schools have multiple missions, only one of which is education, which leads to a loss of focus teachers and administrators dwell on student and family backgrounds so as to build up a catalog of excuses for poor educational outcomes parents are complacent regarding the low expectations set for their children Read more →
People Who Don’t Want Me to Know Things
What I want to know is why there are so many people who don’t want me to know things . . . What the 1% Don’t Want Us to Know Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About 20 Terrifying Facts Food Companies Don’t Want You to Know 11 things the Koch brothers don’t want you to know What hospitals don’t want you to know about C-sections 5 Things Hackers Don’t Want You to Know The Sad Secret Successful People Don’t Want You To Know 7 Rip-Offs Corporations and the Wealthy Don’t Want You to Know About Something Most Christians Don’t Want You to Know 11 Secrets Supermarkets Don’t Want You to Know Conspiracies: Five things they don’t want you to know The 25 Shadiest Things Drug Companies Don’t Want You To Know 11 Secrets Pilots Don’t Want You To Know Bottled Water: 10 Shockers “They” Don’t Want You… Read more →
Aside
If a Man Neglects Education
If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life. — Plato (@PlatoQuote) July 11, 2014 Read more →
Climate Change is Making People More Stupid
(HealthDay News) — Add another possible woe to the growing list of consequences of climate change: Kidney stones. A new study of American cities suggests that rising temperatures may increase the number of people who develop the painful urinary obstructions. — Will a warmer climate mean more kidney stones? – MSN Healthy Living You have to read all the way down to the second-to-last sentence of the article to find this: The study uncovered a connection between higher temperatures and risk of kidney stones, but didn’t prove cause-and-effect. The article implies cause and effect only to fess up right at the end and admit that there is no cause and effect. In the absence of cause and effect, what exactly is the point? In the epilogue of War and Peace, a peasant notices a “connection” between smoke and locomotives and infers cause and effect: the smoke causes the locomotive to… Read more →
Raising Our Kids
Let's just hope these tablets are better at raising our kids than cable. — Paul Danke (@pauldanke) June 24, 2014 Read more →
Bad Personal Ad
Bad personal ad: Looking for someone to take all of my pain from me. In exchange I will take you to a concert. bi. smoker. serious only. — eddie pepitone (@eddiepepitone) July 10, 2014 Read more →
It’s All Part of God’s Plan
One Piece of Advice From T. Boone Pickens
If I had to single out one piece of advice that’s guided me through life, most likely it would be from my grandmother, Nellie Molonson. She always made a point of making sure I understood that on the road to success, there’s no point in blaming others when you fail. Here’s how she put it: “Sonny, I don’t care who you are. Some day you’re going to have to sit on your own bottom.” After more than half a century in the energy business, her advice has proven itself to be spot-on time and time again. My failures? I never have any doubt whom they can be traced back to. My successes? Most likely the same guy. — T. Boone Pickens Read more →
Ten Steps to Being Fat, Lonely and Broke
Some behaviors come naturally while others require more effort. For example, there are dozens of bestsellers on finding love, losing weight and creating wealth but no market for books like Ten Steps to Being Fat, Lonely and Broke. Read more →
If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. — Buddha
As every married person here knows, love is a rotten substitute for respect. — Kurt Vonnegut
An iPad a Week
Our boy has an internship with Red Bull this summer . . . he’s excited because in addition to getting paid, he gets an iPad and 2 cases of Red Bull a week. The last time I told someone that, she said, “He gets an iPad a week? Can I have one?” Read more →
Not Enough Information?
Bertrand Russell declared that, in case he met God, he would say to Him, “Sir, you did not give us enough information.” I would add to that, “All the same, Sir, I’m not persuaded that we did the best we could with the information we had. Toward the end there, anyway, we had tons of information.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
The worst thing you can do to people, aside from physical injury, is give them the idea to blame their failures on vague impersonal forces or the actions of anybody but themselves. It doesn’t promote success or happiness. I don’t know any happy people who think like that. For example, I read this in a New York Times article about an impoverished area of West Virginia: John got caught up in the dark undertow of drugs that defines life for so many here in McDowell County. That is just awful. I live in Southern California, not too far from the ocean . . . I’m familiar with undertows (although I’ve never heard of a “dark” undertow). First of all, sorry to be pedantic but undertows aren’t dangerous . . . they’re just after-effects of individual waves. What’s dangerous is a riptide . . . a concentrated flow of water that… Read more →
Futility
We saw BODIES: The Exhibition at the Luxor in Las Vegas. You’ve probably heard about this . . . dissected bodies are preserved and displayed for educational purposes. Most of the bodies are displayed in athletic poses with props: baseball, basketball, tennis racket, etc. One of the bodies is aiming a dart with his right hand while holding a second dart in his left hand. Of course he’s never going to need that second dart because he’s never going to throw the first dart. Because he’s dead. It creates a sad effect in my opinion . . . plans, unbeknownst to the planner, that will never come to fruition. Futility doesn’t always end with death. Meanwhile . . . I overheard a young woman telling her girlfriend that one of the cadavers had “a nice butt.” Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse. Read more →
How I Identified the Impostor
Capgras Syndrome – The patient believes that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor. We’re going on an overnight trip out of town. Whenever we do that, my wife packs a bag the size of a steamer trunk full of clothes and god-knows-what for all eventualities. This morning, when I went to carry the giant bag downstairs, I realized it was only half full. It was too light. And that is how I identified the impostor. Read more →
Any time I see a person fleeing from reason and into religion, I think to myself, There goes a person who simply cannot stand being so goddamn lonely anymore. — Kurt Vonnegut